1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to monitoring brain function during different states of consciousness such as general anesthesia or natural sleep and, more particularly, to using electroencephalogram (EEG) data to monitor brain function.
2. Description of Related Art
The definition of the term “anesthesia” is—a lack of aesthesia—or lack of sensation. For surgical purposes this is generally achieved in two main ways: 1) infiltration of a peripheral or more central nerve bundle with a local anesthesia, which prevents the nerve impulse being processed by the central nervous system and, thus, sensation (of pain or otherwise is not perceived by the individual who remains conscious and aware; and 2) general anesthesia which requires a loss of consciousness in order for the sensation not to be perceived by the individual. To date no systems of monitoring brain function has produced a reference point beyond which one can absolutely state that there exists a complete lack of consciousness at an anesthetic dosage level low enough to be of practical value. Present systems merely produce a measure of probability of loss of consciousness when the anesthetic dosage level is at the low end of the practical range.
The “depth of anesthesia” generally describes the extent to which consciousness is lost following administration of an anesthetic agent. As the magnitude of anesthetization, or depth of anesthesia, increases, an anesthetized patient typically fails to successively respond to spoken commands, loses the eyelid reflex, loses other reflexes, undergoes depression of vital signs, and the like. Once consciousness is lost there is a progression of effects on brain function as higher concentrations or dose of anesthetic agent are administered.
While loss of consciousness and the loss of awareness of sensation are significant features of anesthesia, it should be noted that balanced high quality anesthesia must also consider muscle relaxation, suppression of the autonomous nervous system, and blockade of the neuro muscular junction. Sufficient muscle relaxation is required to ensure optimal operating conditions for the surgeon manipulating the patient's tissue. The autonomic nervous system, if not suppressed, causes the patient to respond to surgical activity with a shock reaction that effects heavily on hemodynamics and the endocrine system. To keep the patient completely motionless, the neuro muscular junctions transmitting orders from the brain to the muscles of the body need to be blocked so that the body of the patient becomes completely paralyzed.
While the need to determine the state of all five components of anesthesia is widely recognized, ascertaining loss of awareness in a reliable, accurate, and quick manner has been, and is, the subject of extensive attention. One reason for this is its importance. If the anesthesia is not sufficiently deep, the patient may maintain or gain consciousness during a surgery, or other medical procedure, resulting in an extremely traumatic experience for the patient which may have long term consequences such as post traumatic stress disorder. On the other hand, excessively deep anesthesia reflects an unnecessary consumption of anesthetic agents, most of which are expensive. Anesthesia that is too deep requires increased medical supervision during the surgery recovery process and prolongs the period required for the patient to become completely free of the effects of the anesthetic agent. A second reason for the continuing study and attention being given this field is because of its difficulty. Multiple agents are given to the patient. These agents paralyze or inhibit cardiovascular responses without producing unconsciousness. Therefore, it is possible to have a patient aware during surgery and not move or have a change in heart rate or blood pressure. A method to monitor brain function that can reliably detect consciousness or the lack of consciousness would be useful.
It has long been known that the neurological activity of the brain is reflected in biopotentials available on the surface of the brain and on the scalp. Thus, efforts to quantify the extent of anesthesia have turned to a study of these biopotentials. The biopotential electrical signals are usually obtained by a pair, or plurality of pairs, of electrodes placed on the patient's scalp at locations designated by a recognized protocol and a set, or a plurality of sets or channels, of electrical signals are obtained from the electrodes. These signals are amplified and filtered. The recorded signals comprise an electroencephalogram or EEG.
A typical EEG is shown in FIG. 1. A macro characteristic of EEG signal patterns is the existence of broadly defined low frequency rhythms or waves occurring in certain frequency bands. Four such bands are recognized: Delta (0.5-3.5 Hz), Theta (3.5-7.0 Hz), Alpha (7.0-13.0 Hz) and Beta (13.0-32.0 Hz). Alpha waves are found during periods of wakefulness and may disappear entirely during sleep. The higher frequency Beta waves are recorded during periods of intense activation of the central nervous system. The lower frequency Theta and Delta waves reflect drowsiness and periods of deep sleep.
By analogy to the depth of sleep, it can be said that the frequency of the EEG will decrease as the depth of anesthesia increases, while the magnitude of the signal usually increases. However, this gross characterization is too imprecise and unreliable to use as an indication of such a critical medical aspect as the extent of anesthesia. Further, EEG signal changes during anesthesia may not fully correlate with changes in the hypnotic state of the patient.
The foregoing circumstance has led to the investigation and use of other techniques to study EEG waveforms to ascertain the underlying condition of the brain, including the depth of anesthesia to which a patient is subjected. It will be immediately appreciated from FIG. 1A that EEG signals are highly random in nature. Unlike other biopotential signals, such as those of an electrocardiogram (ECG), an EEG normally has no obvious repetitive patterns, the morphology and timing of which can be conveniently compared and analyzed. Nor does the shape of the EEG waveform correlate well to specific underlying events in the brain. Hence, except for certain phenomena, such as epileptic seizures, which are readily apparent from visual inspection of an EEG, the indication of other conditions in the brain in the EEG is much more subtle.
Prefatory to the use of other techniques, the EEG signals are subjected to analog to digital signal conversion by sequentially sampling the magnitude of the analog EEG signals and converting same to a series of digital data values. The sampling is typically carried out at a rate of 100 Hz or greater. The digital signals are stored in the magnetic or other storage medium of a computer and then subjected to further processing to ascertain the underlying state of the brain.
Some of the techniques by which EEG signals can be analyzed in an effort to determine the depth of anesthesia are well described in Ira J. Rampil, A Primer for EEG Signal Processing in Anesthesia, Vol. 89, Anesthesiology No. 4, pgs. 980 et seq., October 1998. Both frequency-domain analysis and time-domain analysis techniques have been considered.
Frequency-domain analysis analyzes the spectrum of frequency signals obtained from the transform to determine characteristics and features occurring in wave forms having the various frequencies of the spectrum. The results of an EEG frequency-domain analysis are typically graphically displayed as a power versus frequency histogram in which frequency is graphed on the abscissa and power is graphed on the ordinate.
Further efforts to obtain useful information from electroencephalograms have employed higher order analyses, including the bispectrum and trispectrum. The bispectrum, which measures the correlation of phase between two different frequency components and quantifies the relationships among the underlying sinusoidal components of the EEG, has received considerable attention. The bispectrum specifically quantifies the relationship between sinusoids at two primary frequencies f1 and f2 and a modulation component at the frequency f1+f2. However, because the calculation must be performed using complex number arithmetic for several thousand f1, f2 and f1+f2 frequency combinations, the computations to obtain bispectral information are rather arduous. Another approach is to measure the “entropy” of the time domain EEG signal. This approach relies on an analysis of the complexity of the EEG signal to provide conclusions.
For clinical use, it is desirable to simplify the results of EEG signal analysis of the foregoing, and other types, into a workable parameter that can be used by an anesthesiologist in a clinical setting when attending the patient. Prior techniques have included showing the EEG signal in a relatively unprocessed form or showing a number (or letter) without any other underlying data supporting that number. Neither solution is helpful in a clinical setting; especially, in the case of the “number” indicator, when the number is at best a probability that the patient is not aware or conscious. Ideally, what is desired is a simple indicator that accurately indicates the patient's lack of awareness and how far below the transition to awareness the patient is. The indicator should also account for phenomena that varies by patient such as, for example, the less pronounced α peak of older patients and the possible occurrence of a burst suppression event. Thus, there remains a need for such an indicator that reliably and quickly indicates awareness during general anesthesia and the depth of anesthesia.